Steerer Tube Question

Billy Whizz

Got a frame and forks on Ebay last month, and am just getting round to building it up. Ordered a nice threaded headset from CRC - it arrives today and when I try to fit it I discover that the steerer tube on the fork is too short. The races and cups fit, but there's not enough thread to get the washer and locknut on .

Anyone any experience with threaded headset/frame/fork compatibility? Find it hard to believe that the frame and fork are incompatibile, seeing as they were sold together. Perhaps I need a special shallower headset?

rob1891

What make of headset are you fitting, it's possible that there are others around with lower stack heights. Could you contact the seller to find out what was fitted before.

stuf

The only threaded headset on CRC is a 1 1/8" to fit a 1" steerer - I know this because I bought one by mistake.

The other size is 7/8" steerer tube which takes a 1" headset. Confusing since both standards have a 1" dimension.

check that you have the right dimensions all round first.

The steering tube will be below the top of the lock nut but it sounds as if you can't even get the locknut on - how much of the tube is above the top race?

rob1891

CRC also have Ultegra and Durace 1" threaded headsets which are the standard 1" type. So assuming the OP got one of these, they have a 37.4mm stack height, which isn't that tall but there are lower that the frame may have been fitted with originially.

First try taking out the washer beneath the locknut, that will give you an extra mm to catch a few threads. Though I wouldn't be happy if I wasn't able get more than 2/3 threads with those aluminium locknuts. If that doesn't work you are going to have to look for a headset with a lower stack height. (I guess if you have access to a tooling workshop you might be able to get them to cut a mm off either end of the headtube and the reface it!)

Chris King do a 33mm height threaded headset but [URL="[url]http://www.sheldonbrown.com/harris/headsets/headsets-1-inch-threaded-iso.html[/url]"]Harris Cyclery[/URL] have a list of some low stack height headsets, Tange and Ritchley, that are significantly cheaper. So perhaps look on ebay or the UK for those. The Tange is on SJS Cycles make sure that your fork is ISO and not Track/JIS, the above headset is for an ISO 1" with 26.4mm seat/30.2mm headtube diameters, the track has 27.0mm fork seat/30.0 headtube diameters.

stuf

rob1891 wrote: »

CRC also have Ultegra and Durace 1" threaded headsets which are the standard 1" type.

aha - I obviously never looked past the £9.99 Brand-X offering - my fixie costs were already spiralling at that stage

I ended up returning the mis-buy and spending €1 on replacement bearings

Billy Whizz

Thank you for all of this information - perfect!!!

It's a 1" threaded 105 headset. Stack height is 37.6mm. Looks like I'll certainly have to find one with a much lower height. Thanks rob1981 for the links.

You can return mis-buys eh?! What about if you've unpacked it, fitted it and then clumsily repacked it?! :pac:

Billy Whizz

Found one with 30.2mm stack height on SJS. Should do the trick!